


Fever & Wasp

by draculard



Category: The Terror (TV 2018), The Terror - Dan Simmons
Genre: Body Horror, Bugs & Insects, Egg Laying (not in a kinky way), Gen, Parasites, Parasitoid Wasps, Period Typical Bigotry, Period Typical Medical Nonsense, Religious Conflict
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-15 15:28:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29810514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/draculard/pseuds/draculard
Summary: There are worse places to be than the Arctic, Stanley tells him.
Relationships: Harry D. S. Goodsir & Stephen S. Stanley
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	Fever & Wasp

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks inquisitor_tohru for reigniting my Terror obsession 🥲 it’s fine 
> 
> Come say hi on tumblr, I’m draculard there too.

Stanley sidled up to him scarcely before the ship had broken port. While all other men were either busy or waving their loved ones goodbye, Goodsir stood blank-faced with his hands gripping the rail, knuckles white. 

“Case of the nerves?” said Stanley. His voice was unctuous; it was a statement, not a question.

“I’m fine,” Goodsir said.

Despite this, Stanley planted himself at Goodsir’s side, so obnoxiously close that their arms were pressed firmly against each other. Goodsir eyed him, considered stepping sideways — but the bannister was so packed, there was nowhere else to go but the orlop. And nothing would unsettle his stomach faster than the orlop.

Stanley surveyed the ocean silently for a moment. The color of water reflected off his pale eyes.

“It’s not bad, the Arctic,” he said eventually, dropping the unctuous tone. “Better than the tropics, you can trust me on that. There’s no hell on earth like the Asian jungles — you’ve never been?”

Goodsir gave a brief shake of the head, trying not to let his irritation show.

“The very _air_ is wet,” Stanley said. “Terrible for the pores. Miasma of all kinds seep into you there — but far worse than the miasma are the wasps.” He turned, surveying the deck — the healthy sailors bundled up in wool, bustling here and there. His eyes were far away. “We had a ship’s boy,” he said, his voice a murmur. “Couldn’t have been older than twelve. Started acting funny our first day in the jungle, making daft suggestions. Then, he was always somewhat daft. Wasn’t until the third day we started to suspect.”

He turned back to Goodsir and raised his eyebrows, as if he expected him to know the malady from what little Stanley had told him. Stanley unbuttoned his cuff, rolled up his sleeve, exposed the rough freckled skin of his forearm. He scratched at it briskly, almost savagely, his short nails digging in and tangling the sandy hairs on his arm.

“Itching,” said Stanley conspiratorially. He leaned in close. “His arms, his face — right here.” He touched his cheekbone, pulling ghoulishly at loose skin. “Right below the eye. Feverish, too; sweating, delirious, hot to the touch.”

Uneasily, Goodsir looked away. Stanley followed his gaze back to the water.

“Fourth day it was over,” he said, voice flat. “Wasps, you see. They’d laid their eggs in him the very first evening, beneath his skin. When the larvae hatched, they started feeding on his soft tissue, eating him alive. And by the time we figured it out, he was dead. His pores were ragged, bitten open. I watched adult wasps crawling out of his tear ducts as he died.”

Beneath his heavy coat, beneath his woolen vest, Goodsir felt a sudden chill. He blamed it on the ocean wind, refused to glance Stanley’s way. His fingers curled tighter over the railing; he wouldn’t give into the sudden crawl of invisible feet over his skin, the intense desire to dig his nails into himself and scratch. When Stanley looked away, Goodsir allowed himself a moment — not scratching, just resting his nails over the back of his wrist — and swore he felt minuscule bumps beneath his skin.

“It’s ridiculous,” he heard himself say, voice faint, teeth clenched.

“What’s ridiculous?”

He couldn’t read Stanley’s tone properly, risked speaking freely. “The eggs,” he said. “They wouldn’t survive inside a human. The host’s natural bodily humours would tear them apart before the larvae ever had a chance to hatch.”

He stared at Stanley, and the longer it took Stanley to respond, the easier it was for Goodsir to believe he’d found the flaw in the other man’s lie. Stanley couldn’t answer him now because Goodsir had caught him out; simple as that. But then he saw Stanley’s lips curl up into a sneer.

“That’s where the _fever_ comes in,” he said, still gazing out at the ocean. “The body is preoccupied, Mr. Goodsir, by the fever. The wasp lays illness as surely as it lays its eggs — but I don’t suppose that’s something an _anatomist_ could fairly be expected to know.”

Goodsir said nothing to the insult. He was willing to bear it so long as Stanley left him be, and a moment later — not receiving the reaction he wanted — Stanley did. He strode away, found someone else to bother with his stories, let Goodsir stare out at the sea alone.

How could a gracious, loving God create such a despicable creature? It was the most sound evidence Goodsir had ever heard against faith; he watched the waves roll, tried to convince himself of their majesty and wonder, felt only a cold sweat between his skin and his many layers of clothes. 

There were no wasps in the Arctic, Goodsir told himself, his uneasiness not fading. And fevers would die there before they had the chance to get started. The cold white sweep of the North would wipe them out. They would be safe there — safe, at least, from fevers and wasps. From God’s least holy children.

Still, even as he told himself this, the skin beneath his eyes began to itch.


End file.
